The (Water)colours of Lake Bled

 LAKE BLED

7th October, 2024

I was perched alone on a wooden bench built into a grey slab of concrete, part of a larger cascading staircase. The pavement below witnessed a slow stream of people. Clusters of families, runners, dog walkers, solo travellers, all seamlessly weaved their way around a beautiful body of water. The rather brutalist staircase I was sat on stood proudly facing the most exquisite view I have ever seen. This was Lake Bled: a great work of art; a pre-painted canvas by an unknown artist.

On this day, wispy white clouds scattered across this light blue canvas. Tall trees of green, brown and black stood confidently, great hills rolled up and down, plunging into the water’s surface. The air was crisp and cold in the shade, yet the sun poured down and gently warmed small patches of grass and concrete. Lake Bled was a mixture of colours I had only ever seen melting together in a paint palette, or artificially on a bright electronic screen. I cannot attribute one colour to this lake as its shades harbour the depth of colour itself, reflecting an array of green and blue hues- both light and dark, transparent and opaque- morphing into each other as the sun’s rays swirled around like a paintbrush on the water’s surface. 

In this moment, I had the greatest urge to use my watercolour palette and paint the tranquil vision I saw before me...

For context, I was one month in to my three-month long backpacking trip across Central Europe, the Balkans and Greece. I often found peaceful moments to sketch my surroundings, focusing on abstract shapes and dynamic light patterns. In Prague, a week prior to my 3-night stopover in Bled, I bought a compact watercolour palette from a quaint art boutique as I felt my beloved biro pens were insufficient in capturing the essence and vibrancy of each place. 

I strolled through the shop’s slender passages, furnished with towering oak cabinets, brimming with colourful paints and taught white canvases. Young and old coalesced: a small child darted through this maze without hesitation, free from the familiar restraint of a parental hand; an old lady, tightly clutching her handbag, mulled over the texture of paper. Perhaps, I had witnessed both a past and future version of myself. A messy, curious and reckless child in the face of art, and a composed older woman, entirely engrossed in the intricate details of her creative project. A smiley shop assistant hypnotised me with an array of palettes, I instantly bought one, despite the tight travel budget. 

My little blue palette serves as a reminder that I will always nurture my lifelong desire to draw, paint and create beauty through art. From then on, I carried this watercolour palette everywhere I went. Even if I didn’t use it, to know I had the possibility of painting almost felt as important as painting itself. 

To mix the colours, I filled up a small plastic cup with the salty, cold water from Lake Bled. Hours before I swam in this freezing lake, entirely submerged in the view I would unknowingly paint later. This water source provided me with both the subject to paint and a means to paint it. I mixed the small squares of vibrant paint together with the freshwater and simply let my hands translate what my eyes saw. The rather salty water made my colours a slightly thicker texture, and they dried much quicker than usual. After three (somewhat relaxing) hours, I had finished my small painting, closed my sketchbook and walked joyously back to my hostel. 

It is important to use nature in painting, whether it be using a natural water source to mix paint, or rubbings from leaves to create texture, or pressing flowers to dye pages. Nature based art can elicit an entirely new way of experiencing and remembering a place or memory. My experience painting Lake Bled was not fuelled by a realistic and 'perfect' outcome. Rather, my experience was fuelled by a desire to connect with nature in a new way. As Lake Bled had extended itself to me, it was more than a vision, it was an instrument in the creative process: both a subject and a tool. 

My painting holds a value far greater than realism or accuracy. It encompasses a vision I will not see for a long time, perhaps ever again, but a vision I can happily return to by flicking through my small sketchbook and feeling the dried water on the page. 

Mieke Lammens, 21st January, 2025